Alpinist Celebrates El Capitan

Alpinist 25, already in the hands of some of our subscribers and available for purchase September 1, profiles the world's most iconic wall—El Capitan—on the 50th anniversary of the Nose. Get your copy (new subscribers get 33 percent off the newsstand rate, for a limited time) to read Tommy Caldwell's history, and other Yosemite essays by Ron Kauk, Royal Robbins, Jim Bridwell, Lynn Hill, Ammon McNeely, Katie Brown, Beth Rodden and more.

For this issue, Alpinist worked with the finest photographers ever to grace the Valley. Those historically significant images we couldn't fit between the covers you'll find here in this feature. We hope they'll bring you back through the decades in celebration of Alpinist's 25th issue and the Nose's 50th anniversary.

A collection of gear that Jim Baldwin and Ed Cooper assembled before going to Yosemite. "We had a party in February or early March in Seattle," Cooper reflected, "and invited a lot of climbing friends to bring climbing gear they could donate to us. We were practically penniless, and neither of us had been to Yosemite before." The photo was taken with a 2 1/2 x 2 1/4 camera. The picture was so underexposed, Cooper added, that it took heroic measures with Photoshop to rescue it. [Photo] Ed Cooper

Lynn Hill on the last pitch of the Nose. "I was hanging off the lip on top doing a photo shoot for Boreal at the time," John Bachar said of the image. "[Lynn] rapped down from the top to the base of the great roof and free climbed back up for photos. She is not doing the entire route in this photo but she did free climb all the pitches that day from the Great Roof to the summit. This was before she did it in a day, and I think she wanted the extra experience of doing those hard pitches before she went for it (as well as getting some photos of her in action as she had none at the time)." [Photo] John Bachar

Jim Baldwin on the second pitch of the Dihedral Wall, May 1962. The image was taken with a Zeiss Super Ikonta 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 folding camera. [Photo] Ed Cooper

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Warren Harding and Dean Caldwell (lower right) facing the media mob on the summit of El Cap after their first ascent of the Dawn Wall in 1970. The cover of Alpinist 25 shows Harding on the last pitch of that climb. [Photo] Glen Denny

Dennis Henneck and Don Lauria early on during the second ascent of the North American Wall. The image was taken with a 4x5 view camera on April 7, 1968. [Photo] Ed Cooper

El Cap seen from the road not too far from Bridal Veil Fall, after a snowstorm. It was taken with a 4x5 view camera on March 5, 1970. Cooper notes that "the trees in the foreground have now grown to the point that it is not possible to get this same view showing almost the entire face of El Cap." [Photo] Ed Cooper